When this pattern came out last year, I was really enthusiastic about it and wanted to make it rapidly, but I was also already 7 months pregnant. So anything closing over my belly was a wrong idea.. I finally ended up buying pattern and fabric over Christmas and made it over the month of March, when I took a couple of days off work.

I’ve seen very beautiful versions of this pattern, starting with Lauren’s stunning lace one, but I needed a more subdued version for my everyday life: I chose navy blue, which actually makes me think of policemen.. But I did chose very contrasting bias band! I went for fuschia.

I had troubles with the use of bias binding and topstitching. When you apply your bias binding to your seam allowances, it looks really good, but then comes the topstitching, which adds another seam on your bias band and makes it less appealing I think. I tried to find a way to avoid this problem but ended up with nothing.

Marrie had said something about adding a lining to the sleeves to make it easier to slip your arms in, and I managed to remember it. Now she’s sharing a tutorial she made! I used the same lining as in my Amy skirt, because it’s very nice to the touch, not too clingy and rather thick. Unfortunately the colour doesn’t work very well with the rest of the coat. I’ve used this fabric not as a lining but more as an underlining: I basted both fabrics together before treating them as one. You can see on the picture above a different colour of bias binding, that’s because I ran out of the bright pink one. I had ordered the amount mentionned on the enveloppe back, so I don’t know what happened.

I had lots of troubles with my interfacing, as I discovered too late that: 1. it’s not fusible and 2. when ironed, it shrinks. That damn thing made all the interfaced areas look wobbly, like the collar in the picture above. It makes me really angry and it’s the main reason why I don’t wear this coat very often: it looks like I haven’t bothered to iron it… There’s not much I can do about it apart from taking apart all the pieces when interfacing is present. And that means undoing the whole coat! I’m not sure I want to do that yet.

Instructions for this pattern are really clear, as usual with Sewaholic patterns. One last thing I would add – I’ve seen it mentioned on blogs, but too late – the pocket openings are narrow, nearly too narrow for me: when I want to put my hand out of my pocket, I need the other hand to hold on to the coat. Silly… FYI, I wear a size 8 gloves.